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Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Clinton's nominee to the Supreme Court, told the Senate Judiciary Committee today that she would be neither a conservative nor a liberal on the Court, but someone who ruled cautiously, without reaching out to write broad principles into the law.

In her opening statement to the committee, which began its hearings today on the nomination, Judge Ginsburg also sought to set a clear boundary on what kind of questions she was willing to answer. She said she would not discuss specific cases or issues that might come before her.

"It would be wrong for me to say or preview in this legislative chamber how I would cast my vote on questions the Supreme Court may be called upon to decide," she said. "A judge sworn to decide impartially can offer no forecasts, no hints, for that would show not only disregard for the specifics of the particular case, it would display disdain for the entire judicial process." [ Excerpts from testimony, page A12. ] Confirmation Appears Sure

Although such unwillingness to engage in specifics has frustrated and annoyed some senators in the past, it was clear today that it will make no difference for Judge Ginsburg, who seems bound to win Senate approval easily.

If confirmed as the nation's 107th Justice, Judge Ginsburg, the 60-year-old member of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, would become the second woman on the Court, joining Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was sworn in in 1981. She would also be the first justice placed on the court by a Democrat in 26 years.

In a colloquy with Senator Howard M. Metzenbaum, Democrat of Ohio, Judge Ginsburg noted with approval that in a case last year from Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the constitutional right to abortion. But she pointedly declined to say whether she believed it was a fundamental right, a category that would mean it would be difficult for states to enact restrictions on abortion.

"Now what regulations are going to be permitted is certainly a question that is going to be before this court," she said. "And that depends in part, Senator, on the kind of record that's presented to the court, and I don't feel it would be appropriate for me to go beyond the point of repeating what the majority of the court has said, that this is a right of women guaranteed by the 14th Amendment." View on Roe Defended

Judge Ginsburg also defended her view, as expressed in law reviews and speeches, that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that first found a constitutional right to abortion went too far, too fast.

She said that in her writings she had engaged in a "'what if?" kind of speculation. Had the Court not set down so detailed a scheme prescribing the way states may regulate abortion in each of the three trimesters of pregnancy, there would have not been so much controversy.

After Roe, she said, the abortion-rights movement became complacent "because the court seemed to have taken care of the problem and the other side had a target around which to rally."

She said, "I could be wrong," but that she believed that had Roe not been so specific, state legislatures would have gradually enacted laws that would have been more enduring than Roe.

Several committee members addressed Judge Ginsburg as if her confirmation were a foregone conclusion.

Senator Carol Moseley Braun, Democrat of Illinois, called her a "brilliant jurist and legal scholar" and said she hoped that Justice Ginsburg would assume the mantle of retired justices William B. Brennan Jr. and Thurgood Marshall. "I say that without prejudging this nomination, kind of," she said to laughter. Caution From Specter

Senator Paul Simon, also an Illinois Democrat, said he believed Judge Ginsburg would be confirmed unanimously.

Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who returned to work Monday after surgery to remove a benign brain tumor, sounded the only cautionary note. Wearing a baseball cap to conceal his bandaged head, he complained that the committee was not taking its role seriously enough because everyone presumed that Judge Ginsburg would be confirmed no matter what.

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In her remarks to the 18-member committee, Judge Ginsburg sought to emphasize her commitment to judicial restraint.

"Let me try to state in a nutshell how I view the work of judging," she said. "My approach, I believe, is neither liberal nor conservative."

She quoted Alexander Hamilton as saying a judge should administer the law impartially. "I would add that the judge should carry out that function without fanfare, but with due care" she said. "She should decide the case before her without reaching out to cover cases not yet seen.

"She should be ever mindful, as Judge and then Justice Benjamin Nathan Cardozo said: 'Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advance.' " Brooklyn Past Evoked

Judge Ginsburg's opening statement was also a testament to the evolution of modern confirmation hearings, as some of her remarks showed how the White House has absorbed lessons from recent past appearances before the committee.

In 1991, Judge Clarence Thomas impressed the committee and the nation with his opening statement, describing how he overcame a childhood of crushing poverty in the town of Pinpoint, Ga., to go on to college and Yale Law School and eventually a seat on a Federal appeals court. The approach became known as Judge Thomas's "Pinpoint Strategy."

Judge Ginsburg included in her statement what might be called her "Flatbush Strategy," briefly discussing her upbringing in the Brooklyn neighborhood. Her grandparents, she said, left Europe, where their Judaism subjected them to, "pogroms and denigration of one's human worth." Her parents instilled in her a love of learning, she said.

In 1987, Judge Robert H. Bork was strongly criticized for his answer to a question on the reason he wanted to be on the Supreme Court. His response that he regarded the position as "an intellectual feast" seemed to bolster the notion pressed by his opponents that he was an unfeeling and thus unsuitable candidate for the Supreme Court.

Judge Ginsburg sought to pre-empt that question today, saying she wanted to be on the Court to help people.

"It is an opportunity beyond any other for one of my training to serve society," she said. "The controversies that come before the Supreme Court as the last judicial resort touch and concern the health and well-being of our nation and its people."

Before being named to the appeals court 13 years ago by President Jimmy Carter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a leading litigator of women's rights cases, arguing six cases before the Supreme Court and winning all but one.

In discussing her strategy of persuading the all-male Court of the early 1970's to accept her arguments, Judge Ginsburg said she saw herself as much as a teacher as an advocate.

"I was trying to educate them that there was something wrong," she said. "One of the differences about gender discrimination and race discrimination was that race discrimination was immediately perceived as evil, odious and intolerable. But the response that I got from the judges before whom I argued when I talked about sex discrimination was: 'What are you talking about? Women are treated ever so much better than men.' "

A version of this article appears in print on July 21, 1993, on Page A00001 of the National edition with the headline: THE SUPREME COURT; GINSBURG PROMISES JUDICIAL RESTRAINT IF SHE JOINS COURT. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe